Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, have gained widespread use and may provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions. Portable electronic devices include, for example, several types of mobile stations such as simple cellular telephones, smart telephones, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptop computers and tablets/pads with wireless 802.11 or Bluetooth capabilities.
Portable electronic devices are generally intended for handheld use and ease of portability. Smaller devices are generally desirable for portability. In addition to a display (which may or may not comprise a touch-sensitive display) some portable electronic devices include a physical (i.e., mechanical) keyboard (as versus a so-called virtual keyboard) to facilitate the entry of various alphanumeric and other characters.
The look and feel of such keyboards is important to the user. For example, character artwork on the assertable surfaces of keyboard keys is preferably sharp and well defined. At the same time, many keyboards must serve in highly cost-constrained application settings that preclude the use of materials and/or processing techniques that tend to readily provide a desired high-quality look and feel.
As one example in these regards, keyboard keys manufactured as form-in-place components have offered a suitable surface in the past for character artwork in terms of meeting such user expectations, but as quality expectations increase the relatively-rough exterior surface of a form-in-place component becomes a less suitable canvas for high-quality artwork.